UTA CARES Grant Program

Tracy Orwig and Marcela Nava

Social Work

"Health Insurance and Access to Care"

The course focuses on health insurance and accessing care in health and behavioral health settings. The grant will help us to develop a course with current content to provide students with up to date information related to insurance and barriers individuals encounter accessing care. Removing the books also allows for an affordable option for bachelor and master level students.

"The Adoption of Zero-Cost Materials for Business Psychology"

This project will cover the adoption of zero-cost resources in PSYC 3302, Business Psychology. In particular, zero-cost resources will be identified, including readings, podcasts, videos, and activities. Then, the syllabus, assignments, and examination items will be aligned to the newly adopted materials.

"Public Service Ethics: A Complete Course Guide for Government, Public Policy, and Public Affairs Instructors"

These open-access course materials are designed to facilitate and assist ethics instructors, particularly those who teach course related to government, public policy, and public affairs. The materials support a traditional sixteen-week course and include three major course assignments, sixteen weekly modules (with videos, quizzes, student worksheets/teaching guides, discussion questions, and reflection exercises), eight case study assignments, and one classroom simulation. The course is designed to use ethics as a lens to explore the development of governance in the United States since the late 19th century. The course materials can be used as stand-alone resources, or the entire text can be adopted to support a complete course. The completed OER text is in the form of a book with seventeen chapters- one for each week, as well as a final epilogue and citations chapter.

Rosie Kallie

Industrial Engineering

"Re-Design of Engineering Research Course"

The Principal Investigator seeks to modify and/or redesign a departmental core curriculum course (Engineering Research Methods) that will only use open educational resources (OER). In re-designing this course with Open Educational Resource(OER) materials, the goal is to provide high-quality, advanced statistical knowledge, with up-to-date applications, all at little to no cost to students.

"Development and Implementation of open access materials for Biology/HEED 1331: Nutrition"

BIOL/HEED1301 - NUTRITION is offered both fall and spring semesters and serves approximately 225 students per year. This project will restructure the course to become a OER course, with free, open-access materials.

"Developing an OER resource for students in science and engineering to meet their needs in completing technical and professional communication course requirements"

Faculty in the Department of Communication will develop an open access textbook that meets course objectives, resonates with our student population, and provides useful illustrations to help enhance their learning. This includes providing updated and new material, research articles, and original video content.

"Second Language Acquisition and Teaching"

This project aims to create an Open Educational Resource for LING 4325: SLA Theories and the Teaching of Language through collaboration with students and instructors of this course. The course is a component of our TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program, with an overall goal of helping students make connections between second language acquisition (SLA) theory and classroom practice.

"Términos Meteorológicos en Estados Unidos de América (Meteorological Terms in the United States of America)"

This OER will facilitate access to reliable Spanish-language meteorological terms benefiting undergraduate meteorology programs and improving the quality of critical information provided to underserved communities.

"Open Education Resources for Life Span Development and Human Behavior"

Open Education Resources for Life Span Development and Human Behavior will reduce financial barriers for our students to receive an excellent education. Specifically, and this project would eliminate the current requirement that students purchase a textbook that costs over $100, while enabling us to infuse a variety of up-to-date reading materials from diverse authors in the master syllabus for SOCW 2302. Because this course is available to students in other departments across the university, this change will increase access to affordable and sustainable learning materials for social work students as well as undergraduate students in variety of disciplines at UTA.

"Introduction to Data Science"

The overarching goal of the proposed project is to develop a new free sustainable open textbook to introduce the foundations of the emerging field of Data Science at a highly conceptual elementary level suitable for first-year college students without any prerequisites (such as calculus or knowledge of computer programming). The textbook offers a survey of contemporary approaches to data-driven discovery. It emphasizes qualitative statistical literacy in logic, data collection, visualization, relationships, and the fundamentals of scientific inference. It also covers the ethical principles involving privacy, data security, and broader societal implications. In particular, it contains various human and cognitive biases that can affect scientific conclusions and discoveries. Additionally, it covers the basic principles of digital computing and computer programming. It also introduces select computing frameworks such as Excel. An introduction to computer programming history will also be given.

"Merging Authentic Literacy Instruction with the Science of Teaching Reading"

This digital text addresses national/state standards in literacy education through showing how to provide authentic, comprehensive literacy instruction, including insights from the science of teaching reading. Along with helping teacher candidates pass certification exams to enter the teaching profession, the text supports knowing how to implement a literacy program in pre-kindergarten through grade 8.

"Culturally Responsive STEM Textbook (CReST): Development of an Open, Accessible STEM Textbook where Teacher candidates Integrate Cultures of Minority Students."

As the student population in classrooms becomes increasingly diverse, teacher candidates must deliver adequate instructions to racial and ethnic minority students, including immigrant students and English learners. To address the cultural and ethnic gap in STEM classrooms, multiple states have strengthened teacher standards to include requirements related to cultural competence. However, very few programs that directly link cultural competence exist in teacher education. This project is to design and implement a Culturally Responsive STEM Textbook (CReST) project in undergraduate STEM courses with the purpose of developing the teacher candidates’ instructional skills for using open educational resources (OER) and enhancing their science affinities and cultural competency, thus establishing an equitable learning environment where engaging and supporting minority children, their families, and communities and closing their achievement gaps. Also, this project will help the teacher candidates save money by using the OER (for STEM concepts & other cultures) in developing the CReST textbook.

Kendra Wallis

"Materials and Nanomaterials for the Energy Supply Chain"

A textbook resource will be developed for the Materials for Energy course in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at UTA. The book will be divided into chapters on Energy Sources, Energy Conversion, Energy Distribution, Energy Storage, and Energy Usage, plus a chapter on Nanomaterials for Energy Applications. Sections of the book will encourage students to think critically about sustainability of materials over the complete life cycle. Student assignments will be used to review and revise the text throughout each semester the resource is used in the course.

"Open Education Resources for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy"

Transitioning all course materials for SOCW 5356 (Cognitive Behavioral Interventions) from an outdated textbook to free online materials such as journal articles, web sources, and instructor-created materials.

Rebecca Mauldin

"Creating Advanced Research Methods OER with PhD Students"

This proposal is for an Open Pedagogy project in which Dr. Rebecca Mauldin and PhD students in SOCW 6340, Advanced Research Methods, create an OER textbook for use in future sections of the course and for adoption among social work PhD programs nationally.

"Developing a New Upper Level Biology Course with Open Educational Resources – Microbiomes: Health and the Environment"

This course explores the development, interactions, and change of polymicrobial communities in both humans and the environment with implications in health, nutrition, disease, research, ecology and agriculture. Students will use their knowledge of microbiology to analyze various microbiome case studies, summarize results, and explain their findings.

Aida Allen

Innovation Grant

"Building a Business Math Content Library in WeBWorK "

The purpose of this project is to build a business math library in the WeBWorK system. The WeBWorK library will be used in Math 1315: Business Mathematics with Foundations in the Fall 2020 semester. Using this open program will provide students with prompt feedback on homework and quizzes while eliminating the burden of grading for large classes for the instructor.

"Advanced Spanish Composition OER"

Three faculty members in the Department of Modern Languages at UT Arlington seek funding to create an OER textbook for SPAN 3315, suited to the need of our students and the demand for proper writing in their future professions. In addition, this project is aligned with the mission of Hispanic Serving 2 Institutions to enhance the retention and graduation rates of first-generation college students through the creation of mentorship programs.

"Español Práctico: Introducción al Estudio de la Lengua Española"

This project seeks funds to create an OER textbook with contents that are unique, suitable, and aligned to the needs of students in SPAN 3316: Spanish Language Study, a new course designed for students pursuing a B.A. in Spanish for Global Competence and a B.A. in Spanish Translation & Interpreting in the Department of Modern Languages. It will be a foundational course in the study of the Spanish Language, which students deepen their knowledge of Spanish as a linguistic system. This project will be the first OER textbook in the field of Spanish Linguistics.

“Evaluating the Effectiveness of OER Products in a First Year Engineering Course”

The purpose of this project is to develop and implement OER products in two sections of the course Engineering Problem Solving (ENGR 1250) in Spring 2020. Performance measures also will be studied to better understand how the implementation affects student success.

"Strategies for Success in Nursing School: From Start to Finish"

The Nursing Student Success Manual creators ask for assistance in adapting/creating a textbook that instructors will use for all sections of UNIV-NU 1131 in nursing. This course gives nursing students the skills needed to succeed in the nursing program at UTA. There is no current, nursing-specific textbook for this course; the only available text was published in 2007. Therefore, the project members will spend considerable time creating content while adapting existing texts to suit their needs. To accomplish this task, project members seek a UTA CARES Innovation Grant. The project lead, Leslie Jennings, will use these funds to compensate project members for their contributions to the textbook.

Dr. Tiffany Kindratt

"Big Data for Epidemiology: Development of Applied Data Analysis Skills using National Health Surveys"

This proposal is to develop an open textbook for a new course in the Master of Public Health program. The textbook will also be used to train students who volunteer and work in Dr. Kindratt’s Health Services Research Lab. To fulfill Aim 1, the open textbook will be written and developed in Summer 2020 and produced through Mavs Open Press in Fall 2020. To fulfill Aim 2, the textbook will be used for training MPH (and highly skilled upper-level BSPH) students who work/volunteer in Dr. Kindratt’s Health Services Research Lab and will be the course textbook for “Big Data for Epidemiology,” a new 5000-level course that will be available for MPH students to enroll in Spring 2021.

"Development, Adoption, and Assessment of OER to Enhance Building Information Modeling Courses"

The main objectives of this project are to: (1) develop and adopt an open education platform for Architecture and Civil Engineering students, (2) provide students with adequate, coherent, consistent, and cost-saving educational resources, and (3) assess the impact of adopting this platform in architecture pedagogy. The building information modeling (BIM) courses at the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering Department are selected for this project.

"Where Does Art Come From? A Digital OER Text for Open Pedagogy on Global Arts and Culture"

This project will create a new OER text entitled Where Does Art Come From? focused on global arts and culture the core curriculum art history introductory course “Arts of Africa, Asia, Islam, Oceania, and the Ancient Americas.” The project will reduce the required financial outlay of students to no-cost through OER. Alongside the development of this text, the course will be revised using open pedagogy and flipped classroom strategies to enhance student engagement and contribution.

"Producción de Noticias Televisivas en Español en Estados Unidos de América"

This is the first and only textbook focusing on Spanish-language television news production in the United States. It is written in Spanish and includes American and cross-cultural terminology adaptations innate to the Hispanic media industry. Universities across the United States and Latin America (e.g. Arizona State University, University of Florida, California State University-Fullerton, Universidad Anahuac Mayab [Mexico], Universidad Javeriana [Colombia]) are interested and awaiting its release to beta test the first edition during the Spring 2020 semester.

"Introduction to Social Work Text"

After lengthy searches for OER Introduction to Social Work curriculum, some basic introductory material was found developed by the School of Social Work at Ferris State University in Michigan. The goal of this stipend project is: 1) to expand and revise on these materials; 2) to make some necessary modifications of the materials that corresponds to the practice of social work in Texas; 3) to add materials that pertain specifically to the School of Social Work at UTA; and, 4) to outline an accompanying student workbook following the completion of this text.

Karen Magruder

"Creating Green Social Work Curriculum with OER"

The purpose of this project is to develop OER curriculum and materials for the School of Social Work’s new course: SOCW 5392- Selected Topics in Social Welfare: Green Social Work. Avoiding adopting an existing textbook will save students money and prevent the creation of physical materials, thus reducing the carbon footprint of the course. The funds will support creation of the syllabus, course assignments, and course delivery method that support OER content.

"Fully Adopting OER for PHIL 2314: Perspectives on Science and Mathematics"

Rewrite the course using OER materials to replace the currently used textbooks. This will involve rewriting the topic selection and adapting focus and assessments around the new materials.

"OER for Introductory Programming Classes"

Develop a suite of resources for students in CSE 1310 Introduction to Programming courses that can replace the current E-book. Resource suite will include a textbook but also supporting resources that address the needs and styles of current learners including video, online practice, and 24/7 support services if possible. Initial pilot will be in Dr. Tiernan's Fall CSE 1310 class with a usual enrollment of 150. If useful and adequate, this pilot resource suite would be spread to all sections of CSE 1310 with a total enrollment averaging around 400 students.

"Adopting OER for Introduction to Oceanography"

In this project I plan to adjust the curriculum and develop teaching materials for my GEOL 1350 (Introduction to Oceanography) class in Fall 2020 in order to match with the open textbook “Introduction to Oceanography” by Paul Webb. Most topics are covered extensively enough in the book, but I will assemble my own units on the role of the ocean in the climate system and on the human impact on the ocean and its ecosystems. The adoption of an open resource will ensure that all students have immediate and equitable access and will not have to delay the purchase of the textbook due to their financial situation, hereby improving student engagement and success.

Dr. Kimberly Breuer and Dr. Scott Palmer

"Introduction to Historical Methods OER Project"

Development of an original, open educational resources (OER) for the History Department’s foundational undergraduate offering HIST 3300 “Introduction to Historical Research” plus the department's UNIV 1101 offering (courses are tied  together). A collaborative project utilizing the departmental faculty to produce chapters and sections leveraging Pressbooks with Canvas and other apps such as Hypothes.is ,embedded videos, and interactive assignments and activities. This OER will fill a gap in available open materials for Historical Methods (there are no OER available) and chapters/sections of this OER textbook will also be used throughout the History curriculum, from freshman US History surveys (core courses) to graduate level courses.

"The Data Notebook: An Interactive Introduction to Data"

We request a UTA CARES Innovation Grant for a 12-month project to support the creation of The Data Notebook— an open access course-book (and related collection of multimedia resources) that will provide instructional materials for data analytics and data visualization approaches relevant to a wide range of humanities and science disciplines at UTA.

"Improving Engagement in Online Classes through Use of Pressbooks Interactive Tools"

The objective of this project is to create an openly licensed Histology textbook that utilizes Pressbooks’ built-in annotation tools to increase students’ engagement with the images and helps them develop and refine their higher order thinking skills in pattern recognition, particularly with microscopic images. This book will be module based to simplify and expedite the implementation of 5R practices of Open Educational Resources (OER) and make it easy for faculty to remix, reuse, revise and redistribute OER content while encouraging customization of material by the adopting instructor.

Dr. Rebecca Mauldin

"Adopting OER for Research Methods Classes across the BSW and MSW Programs"

This project will coordinate OER textbook adoption and implementation for Research Methods courses across the Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work programs in the School of Social Work (SOCW 3308 and SOC 5308). It will include updating course syllabi, course materials, and Canvas course shells and training instructors on OER and implementation of the textbook.

"Introducing the OER to Business Math"

The purpose of this project is to eliminate the Pearson access for course assignments along with the in-class workbook which will save students a total expense of $110 in Math 1315 co-requisite model. Instead I plan to adopt the available free resources from the UTA Library, a free web-based math program developed by the MAA (webmath), and built-in homework assignments in Canvas that I will be developing over summer. The revision will include modification of the syllabus, course assignments (homework and quizzes), and course delivery method. I hope this adoption to be a gateway for more future adoptions of the OER in Math 1315. Later, I would like to foster collaborative environment with my students and write OER materials for this course for other faculty to use.

Dr. Bonnie Boardman

Industrial, Manufacturing, & Systems Engineering

"Introduction to Industrial Engineering OER"

I would like to create an OER Pressbooks "text" for IE 1205, Introduction to Industrial Engineering. The first step would be to turn an existing open license pdf into a Pressbooks, interactive text.

Dr. Ashley Lemke

Sociology and Anthropology

"Open Access Introduction to Archaeology Textbook"

Introduction to Archaeology is a fundamental course taught each semester which introduces students to the study of prehistory and past human cultures. The students in this course would benefit greatly from zero cost materials as a textbook is required; previous students in this course have told me they have been unable to purchase the book. There is currently no completed, open access textbook for this course or topic available so I propose to work with the Social Sciences Librarian Brooke Troutman to create an open access book in PressBook format of openly licensed materials and original content.

Dr. Habib Ahmari

"Developing and Implementing an Open Access Multimedia Platform to Enhance Teaching Fluid Mechanics Lab"

The proposed project seeks to transform the traditional teaching Fluid Mechanics Lab, a Civil Engineering (CE) junior level course, by devising a Web-based multimedia platform. This platform will provide open access support for students and include customized lab manuals, educational videos, and an interactive lab report preparation toolkit. The project will be carried out by a faculty-student team comprised of Dr. Habib Ahmari, one graduate student, and three undergraduate students.

Dr. Theresa Jorgensen

"Utilizing OER Resources to Strengthen the Student Experience in Geometry"

This project will support the revision of Geometry 3301 to transition to OER materials. The revision will include modification of the syllabus, course assignments, and course delivery method.

Dr. Andrew Milson

"Open Human Geography: Free Classic Readings and Wiki Education"

Dr. Ignacio Ruiz-Pérez

"Creating an Open Access Chapter for Spanish 3315: Composition through Literature"

Dr. Christy Spivey

"OER Adoption in an Economics Data Analysis Capstone Course"

I am developing a new course for the Economics BS program, ECON 4318: Economic Data Analysis Capstone, to be taught for the first time in Fall 2018. A major focus of this course will be a data analysis project, which will require students to answer an economic question using real data and to communicate the findings in a way that is understandable to a non-Economics major. I plan to use Wiki Education and open source materials from Tableau, the data visualization software, for the project.

"Development of Web-Based Interactive Educational System Replacing Traditional Textbook-Based Instructional Approach"

"Multi Media and other Supplementals to Facilitate Adoption of an existing OER Textbook"

"Educational Statistics Using R and R Commander"

"Content-Based French Language: An OER Creation Project"